Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Perhaps the saddest loss I suffered this year was the end of my favourite TV Show of the past 20 years, Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom. As I've written previously, I always love the worlds Sorkin creates, even though most seem to tire of them. The Newsroom is my very definition of a great television show, intelligent, politically aware, darkly funny and romantic. The Newsroom teaches the viewer so many things that other TV shows seem to ignore.

The through line of The Newsroom's three season run was Will McAvoy's 'Mission to Civilise', the essential premise of Don Quixote, which is used by Aaron Sorkin frequently. This isn't just a snappy catchphrase, or a so-called 'Sorkinism'. Too many critics make this mistake. Sorkin is not trying to score political points, or rewrite history. Will's 'Mission' is as realistic as Alonzo's was over 400 years before, and draws on the same basic lessons.

The Atlantis Cable Network (ACN) bears absolutely no resemblance to any Cable News Channel throughout the world. Will, Mack, Charlie, Jim, Sloan, Maggie, Don, Neil, and the rest who inhabit Sorkin's universe are all damaged characters in the best ways... because no actual human being could exhibit flaws so earnestly, and with such righteousness. ACN is therefore a fictional ideological orbit, where every choice is intellectually justified, principled and designed to emphasise 'the greater good'.

While some story lines are based on real events, I choose to believe The Newsroom has no basis in reality whatsoever. It is instead a parable, just like Don Quixote. If you accept Sorkin's ideological predilections as I do, people can use the lessons of the ACN universe to be politically, socially and intellectually responsible.

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

I've often use the phrase 'Knowledge is Power', and one of the ways I obtain this knowledge is by reading long form journalism on the internet. I think, on average, I read about two longform pieces a day. Instead of cataloguing my favourite pieces in my annual list of pop culture. I've decided to highlight two of my favourite internet writers and then link to some of my favourite articles of the year; a reading list if you will.

One of the problems with literary crushes, is that they remain just that. There is no way to consummate the love properly, there is minimal chance of having a dialogue on the pieces they have written, even less of a chance that you will see them in person to have a conversation on their work. Nonetheless, I can say these two women below have given me more joy than just about anything else this year.

Charlotte Shane
Charlotte Shane is a sex worker and proud of it. I first read an article of hers about three months ago. Shane's writing was frank and candid, but never smutty. She intelligently broke down common misconceptions about the sex industry (it is not always dangerous or glamourous). Instantly after finishing the piece I went searching through the the interwebs to see if I could find more of her work. I then discovered her Tinyletter account, Prostitute Laundry. I get an email, usually 500-1000 words a piece, roughly two times a week. The email contains a little vignette, each connected by a larger linear narrative. They are the best thing I've discovered this year. While these emails often contain vivid descriptions of sex acts, their power lies in Shane's ability to examine what men need from sex (and why some pay for it). Getting you to sign up to the Tinyletter account is my Christmas gift to my readers. I'm also addicted to her twitter feed, which is full of positive political discussion around gender and sex work.

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

I'm a survivor - a living example of what people can go through and survive.

Elizabeth Taylor: describing herself

If 2013 was the year of self discovery and independence, 2014 has proven to be one of consolidation. Of proving to myself that the happiness and joy I have felt since I moved away was not just temporary. Last week in the middle of writing my thesis, I had a fleeting thought that has sometimes struck me since I forged out on my own.

I am free. I can do whatever the fuck I want and I don't have to answer to anyone!

Every single day since December 27th 2012 has proven to be a gift, because I truly know how shitty life can be.

Last year I ambitiously forecast that 2014 would be 'The Year of the Doctor'. It was not. I still have more than a year to go before the PhD thesis will be completed. But I haven't sat still. My argument has been redefined, and my supervisors are more confident in the path that we are taking. It may not be finished in 2015. Who knows? The new deadline date is August 31st, 2016, so as long as it is completed by then, I don't really care how I get there. There are no ambitious forecasts this time. Life is for having fun.

Fun is exactly what I've been having this year. In August, I took my first travelling holiday since 2007. I spent a week on the Gold Coast, in a fully accessible lake house on Runaway Bay. With the supporting cast of three excellent staff members from Wesley Mission Brisbane, and two of my fellow residents from the Youngcare complex, I read 3 books, gambled, watched my favourite musical of the year, and got some much needed sleep.

In 2014, I participated in the ultimate brotherly bonding moment when we saw James Faulkner brake the hearts of the English Cricket Team, educated a few Queenslanders on the finer points of the greatest game the world has ever known, saw my father get bear hugged by a Crows supporter, who claimed to follow Port, while wearing a Gold Coast Suns jumper, and enjoyed an entire day of live Test cricket. All of that was at the one venue, The Gabba.

Musically, I attended live gigs that featured Bruce Springsteen, Neko Case, Lior, Angus and Julia Stone, and Jimmy Eat World (at a gig that celebrated the tenth anniversary of one of my favourite albums, Futures). My next year in music promises to be bigger still, as I've already secured tickets to see Belle and Sebastian, First Aid Kit, The Veronicas, Demi Lovato and the incomparable Taylor Swift.

In the midst of all that frivolity, my biggest achievement of the year was writing and starring in Youngcare's ad campaign. I am so proud of the ad, and the other work I've done with Youngcare this year, including participating in meetings with the Federal Parliamentary Secretary of Disabilities, as well as the Queensland Treasurer, and the Queensland Minister for Disabilities. My year in disability advocacy became even larger when Wesley Mission Brisbane asked to participate in their fundraising campaigns too.

At the end of the last few years I always think I survived the year and that is an achievement, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely satisfied with everything that transpired. Once again I'm continually disappointed by the struggle to find intimacy, which is not treated like a commodity. This is particularly so given that I've worked so hard trying to be more outgoing in 2014. Objects of this author's affection remain unattainable as always, only to continue the cycle of perpetual disappointment.

Lastly, thank you to the staff who work with me in my home, all of whom are employed by Wesley Mission Brisbane. Without them I couldn't do any of the things I mentioned above. The place that Youngcare built with vision and care. I would encourage every reader to donate to Youngcare and/or Wesley this Christmas. So far I'm only one person of 25 who gets to live in this fantastic environment. There needs to be more. Please give the gift of freedom. The kind of freedom I always dreamed of, and now have.

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Four years ago this month I wrote the first published article on the ABC's online disability portal Ramp Up. Writing that article was, at the time, a thrilling experience. I always wanted to be a contributor to my national broadcaster. I was so green though, and it showed. I thought the views I expressed in that article were indicative of the views of people with disabilities around the country. Turns out they were not. I was the radical within my own fringe group.

In the following months, this sense of displacement grow wider, as the views on my own disability radicalised. It was pure happenstance that I learnt to loathe my cripness at the same time that my views on disability became more widely known. I never set out to ruffle feathers, and contrary to the opinion of some, I don't take pleasure in telling the world that I hate my most widely known characteristic.

I can never understand the mainstream orthodoxy of disability in this country. Since being published by Ramp Up, at the instigation of Stella Young, I have really tried to understand the views of the disability community that differed from my own, particularly those of Stella's, who to my mind was always the personification of this orthodoxy. I read every article of hers, more than once. Each time I could feel myself wondering:

How the hell did she get there?

For someone so beloved by so many people I know and respect, I was often so utterly confused by Stella. It wasn't that we disagreed, and that we were polar opposites ideologically, but that our views were so personal, and went to the core of our respective beings. Every time she would write, and appear on TV, she would proclaim that being disabled was not only a thing that she loved, but that it was the best part of her.

Since news of her death emerged, the response of the media and the community has genuinely astounded me by its sheer number. It is great that she has been recognised, because she was a game changer for disability advocacy. I don't begrudge the enormity of the coverage, even though the occasional piece veers into the self indulgent wankery of 'I knew Stella better than you did.'

I did not know Stella at all, but the response to her death leaves me more confused than any of her pieces ever did. When the only coverage of disability in the media (and thereby the only argument projected to the general public) is centred around individuals who accept 'The Stella Paradigm' of disability pride: where all crips are assumed to be for the social model of disability, NDIS advocating, 'inspiration porn' crusading, crip champions for the masses.

What happens when you disagree with every single aspect of 'The Stella Paradigm'?

Am I being too harsh on my own disability? Should I learn to love it? How come I cannot?

How come when I think of my disability, it brings me nothing but pain, regret and longing?

How could similar thoughts bring Stella, and many others, so much joy?

It is these questions that give me pause and so much confusion.

Just a few hours ago I read an article that advocated for the return of Ramp Up. Looking at the big picture, I always think it is fantastic idea to give people with disabilities the opportunity to share their opinions and values. However, if Ramp Up was to replicate its former model. I don't want to be part of it. I met some great people through my connection with the site, but that model represents 'The Stella Paradigm' in all its glory. Pride proclaiming, chest beating, flag waving cripdom.

This week has been such a struggle. Revisiting my own crip ideology, I have concluded that the biggest thing that defines my disability is my own self loathing. I have never wanted to do what Stella did on behalf of all disabled Australians. I would hate to be the walkie's authority on all things disability. It is why I admired Stella. She did things I could never do. She spoke for the nation. She loved her tribe. She loved herself.

Monday, 8 December 2014

My former editor, colleague and worthy adversary, Stella Young died this weekend, at the age of 32. I feel like I have no choice but to write about this, in an effort to process my grief. I never met Stella face to face, but in one of our last emails when she commissioned me for a piece, she told me:

'I write to you because even when you don't try, you drive up traffic. I hate what you say, but no one says it quite like you. You're the Andrew Bolt of disability. We need people like you. You are not afraid to say what you feel. Ramp Up needs to be shaken up again.'

Even though her death is a tragedy, I grieve not for my personal loss, the last time we spoke was February, but for the hole that her loss leaves for people with disabilities in this country. Even though I often bemoaned it, Stella was the nation's go to voice on all things disability. I didn't agree with her TED talk, or 90% of her writing.

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Yesterday, I think, a friend posted this on her
Facebook page. Over the years, this friend and I have had many a conversation
about our different methods of finding a rewarding long term relationship. She's in one now, I'm not. Just
a few hours ago I only half joked that my thoughts on this article would not
fit into a Facebook comment box. And then I thought about why... then I came
here.

One: We Don't Understand Ourselves

The very idea that we might not be too difficult as
people should set off alarm bells in any prospective partner. The question is
just where the problems will lie: perhaps we have a latent tendency to get
furious when someone disagrees with us, or we can only relax when we are
working, or we’re a bit tricky around intimacy after sex, or we’ve never been
so good at explaining what’s going on when we’re worried. It’s these sort of
issues that – over decades – create catastrophes and that we therefore need to
know about way ahead of time, in order to look out for people who are optimally
designed to withstand them. A standard question on any early dinner date should
be quite simply: ‘And how are you mad?’

What if you know exactly 'how you are mad'? You
know all your tricks, insecurities, and psychological flaws? You knew how they turned people on? You knew how they turned people
off? You knew them so well, that you could also time them to the second? The only thing that you did not know was how to stop them coming out eventually?

My problem is not that 'we don't understand
ourselves' it is that I might know myself too well.

I used to think this was directly related to my
disability, that I knew myself hyper-senstively, because I knew what I could not
do instantly. Now, I just think I know myself so well because I have so much
time to stew inwardly. Just because I know that the mistakes are coming, it doesn't mean
I can stop making them.

Two: We Don't Understand People

We need to know the intimate functioning of the
psyche of the person we’re planning to marry. We need to know their attitudes
to, or stance on, authority, humiliation, introspection, sexual intimacy,
projection, money, children, aging, fidelity and a hundred things besides. This
knowledge won’t be available via a standard chat.

In the absence of all this, we are led – in large
part – by what they look like. There seems to be so much information to be
gleaned from their eyes, nose, shape of forehead, distribution of freckles,
smiles… But this is about as wise as thinking that a photograph of the outside
of a power station can tell us everything we need to know about nuclear
fission.We ‘project’ a range of perfections into the
beloved on the basis of only a little evidence. In elaborating a whole
personality from a few small – but hugely evocative – details, we are doing for
the inner character of a person what our eyes naturally do with the sketch of a
face.

So
there’s actual proof that someone beyond my family actually gives a shit about
me, above all else?

That last one is why I thought people got married.

I thought you got married because:

You’re
it. You’re the person I picked. Here’s the person who is not connected to me
via blood, who is with me until I die. Because she wants to be.

That was my definition. Now I have none. I struggle
to think that person even exists any more. But if they do, they better have that same
definition.

Three: We Aren’t Used to Being Happy

As adults, we may then reject certain healthy
candidates whom we encounter, not because they are wrong, but precisely because
they are too well-balanced (too mature, too understanding, too reliable), and
this rightness feels unfamiliar and alien, almost oppressive. We head instead
to candidates whom our unconscious is drawn to, not because they will please
us, but because they will frustrate us in familiar ways.We marry the wrong people because the right ones feel wrong –
undeserved; because we have no experience of health, because we don’t
ultimately associate being loved with feeling satisfied.

I’ve never been 100% happy.

Never. Ever.

As a kid I was disabled, so I wasn’t happy.
As a teenager and young adult I was never happy because I was in denial, and I
programmed myself to think I was. Now in the happiest time in my life, I’m still
not terribly satisfied to the point of self actualisation. And I still don’t
know why. Maybe I just need attractive women to hold me? Maybe it is a
part of my DNA? Maybe it is the thing that makes me so driven? My ongoing quest to
finally get to ‘100% happiness’.

But at the same time, these past two years
of ‘peak happiness’ have taught me that trying to find a woman to fill that
percentage quota will lead me down the wrong path. So I guess that’s progress.

Four: Being Single is so Awful

One is never in a good frame of mind to choose a partner rationally when
remaining single is unbearable. We have to be utterly at peace with the
prospect of many years of solitude in order to have any chance of forming a
good relationship. Or we’ll love no longer being single rather more than we
love the partner who spared us being so.Unfortunately,
after a certain age, society makes singlehood dangerously unpleasant. Communal
life starts to wither, couples are too threatened by the independence of the
single to invite them around very often, one starts to feel a freak when going
to the cinema alone. Sex is hard to come by as well. For all the new gadgets
and supposed freedoms of modernity, it can be very hard to get laid – and
expecting to do so regularly with new people is bound to end in disappointment
after 30

This of course leads to the next point. To be blunt, for me, I think
this part rings the truest. For a long time now, society has tried to teach me
both implicitly and explicitly that the only way a disabled man can get regular
sex, and express himself sexually, is through a relationship, usually with a
disabled female. Disabled men don’t have ‘fuck buddies’ because disabled men
don’t like sex. And if this mythical creature ‘the disabled man with a high sex
drive’ wants sex, he can pay for it, but we must never talk about it. Or he can marry someone, (if he ever found
someone who thought he was sexually attractive, another mythical creature). I don’t
need to tell you that good sex does not make a good long term relationship. Especially if you think it is your only option.

Five: Instinct Has Too Much PrestigeMedieval miniature. Meeting of the Roman Senate. Discussion on marriage
between a plebeian woman and a roman patrician. 15th century.Back in the olden days, marriage was a rational business; all to do with
matching your bit of land with theirs. It was cold, ruthless and disconnected
from the happiness of the protagonists. We are still traumatised by this.

What replaced the marriage of reason was the
marriage of instinct, the Romantic marriage. It dictated that how one felt
about someone should be the only guide to marriage. If one felt ‘in love’, that
was enough. No more questions asked. Feeling was triumphant. Outsiders could
only applaud the feeling’s arrival, respecting it as one might the visitation
of a divine spirit. Parents might be aghast, but they had to suppose that only
the couple could ever know. We have for three hundred years been in collective
reaction against thousands of years of very unhelpful interference based on
prejudice, snobbery and lack of imagination.

So pedantic and cautious was the old ‘marriage of
reason’ that one of the features of the marriage of feeling is its belief that
one shouldn’t think too much about why one is marrying. To analyse the decision
feels ‘un-Romantic’. To write out charts of pros and cons seems absurd and
cold. The most Romantic thing one can do is just to propose quickly and
suddenly, perhaps after only a few weeks, in a rush of enthusiasm – without any
chance to do the horrible ‘reasoning’ that guaranteed misery to people for
thousands of years previously. The recklessness at play seems a sign that the
marriage can work, precisely because the old kind of ‘safety’ was such a danger
to one’s happiness.

This falls under the category of ‘A beautiful woman
around my age treats me like a 'normal' human being, and not like a crippled dumb arse,
therefore I must be in love with her’

Still a mistake I continually make.

There are four more points, each have their valid arguments, but ones I find have less relevance to me.

My Facebook friend posited that she didn’t know anyone who started a long term committed relationshipbefore they turned 25,who were still together
today, and the reasons in this article suggested why. To be honest, I thought ‘I bet
this article will be full of bullshit’. You see, contrary to what you’ve read
above, I’ve always been the eternal relationship optimist, and she the ultimate
pragmatist. But then I read the thing, and I thought ‘Shit, this is about 75%
right, lucky the rest of the world is not crippled.’